The importance of individual membership

I'm sure you'll hear the assertion that "membership is important" more
than once this season -- in the current economy every organization
could certainly use money, but why exactly is membership so important?

For the FSF it provides funding to employ a small staff of twelve so
we can support the efforts of thousands of volunteers all over the
world, as well as providing the kind of autonomy that an organization
subject to grant-making trends and corporate whims can't enjoy. Most
importantly, as members you are the face of the FSF in your
community.

We get a huge amount of work done for such a small staff -- we
maintain the GNU General Public License (GPL), house the GNU Project,
run the Defective by Design campaign and defend free software (and
free software users) from patent abuse, secret formats and hardware
that requires nonfree drivers. I find that I sometimes surprise our
supporters when I tell them there are only twelve of us. The frequent
visitors to our office are given the tour and I get the feeling that
they don't quite believe us. Perhaps they suspect that we're not
showing them the secret floors where the wizards and their minions
work?

Membership is individual, personal and if you wish, it can also be
private. Your decision to support free software is not subject to the
desires of a group of shareholders. It is not a decision which is made
with the eyes of the grant-making community on you. It is not even
made with your employer's approval or disapproval in mind. Unless you
are one of those happy folk employed at a free software company, where
FSF membership demonstrates your commitment to shared goals, your
coworkers may not even know that you're one of us.

I left the best bit for last -- the thing that we cherish the most
about our members, is our members themselves. You get updates from us
every week or so and so you know about the challenges to free
software. Maybe you pass the news along to your friends and colleagues
and spread the message of free software that way. Maybe you've helped
a relative install Inkscape or GIMP and explained to them a little bit
about free software as you worked. Nobody else in the free software
movement has the easy opportunities that you do to have conversations
with your cousin or your neighbor about user freedom, which is
precisely why you are so important. You are already right there, in
your community -- a card-carrying member of the Free Software
Foundation -- you are the movement.